The last few years, and even the last few months, have seen major disruptions in technologies influencing banking and payment systems. 2009 saw the advent of open source payment systems such as Bitcoin and innovation has not slowed since then. Systems such as Square, Amazon Mobile Payment, Google Wallet, and most recently Apple Pay have demonstrated the broad potential for innovation in retail banking in Internet era. However the changes have not been restricted to retail banking alone, although those are the most obvious in daily consumer life. Banks patent payment architecture systems and investment banks patent trading algorithms. All of these patents influence the future of the banking industry, but which is the most valuable? Value can be defined as generating profit for the banks themselves or in terms of the degree of disruption to the current system, but value can also be measured in terms of societal benefits.

Please provide a response to the following prompt:

What is the most valuable patent granted in the last 10 years for the banking industry and why?